A Primer on Non-Interventionism

The current issue of TAC includes my overview (not yet online) of what a non-interventionist foreign policy would look like in practice. Here is an excerpt:

A noninterventionist foreign policy would first of all require a moratorium on new foreign entanglements and commitments for the foreseeable future. A careful reevaluation of where the U.S. has vital interests at stake would follow. There are relatively few places where the U.S. has truly vital concerns that directly affect our security and prosperity, and the ambition and scale of our foreign policy should reflect that. A noninterventionist U.S. would conduct itself like a normal country without pretensions to global “leadership” or the temptation of a proselytizing mission. This is a foreign policy more in line with what the American people will accept and less likely to provoke violent resentment from overseas, and it is therefore more sustainable and affordable over the long term.

In my conclusion, I try to sum up the virtues of non-interventionism:

Noninterventionism is a rather clunky and unappealing label for a set of very appealing ideas: that the U.S. should mind its own business, act with restraint, respect other nations, refrain from unnecessary violence, and pursue peace.

13 Responses to A Primer on Non-Interventionism

Are you obtuse or illiterate? None of the above reading (nor Larison’s writings in general) suggest pacifism and disarmament.

If we were attacked overnight by Canada we could probably sort them out. Outside some sort of totally unforseeable sneak attack, war will probably only arrive for the United States if the US is entangled overseas.

Wet One: if war is “on your doorstep” then your country is not intervening, it’s acting in self-defense. Non-interventionism is not the same as pacifism. It’s a position that limits the acceptable times for using military force, not the position that military force is evil.

Our mutual “defense” treaty with the NATO countries has resulted in two unnecessary and counterproductive wars, neither of which involved self-defense of any NATO member or enjoyed even the fig leaf of United Nations approval.

- First NATO launched its air war to drive the Serbian government out of its own province of Kosovo in blatant violation of international law.

- Then we let France and Britain drag us into an air war against Libya with results that could have been scripted by Al Qaeda.

In each case NATO self-justified its attack with reference to a supposedly forthcoming “genocide” for which there was little or no evidence.

This is an alliance that served a real, practical defensive purpose from its creation until the end of the 1980s. Sadly, it has long outlived that purpose and now exists only to perpetuate itself by inventing military conflict.

SDS: Absolutely right. At the least, the US ought to explicitly repudiate the security guarantees we have foolishly given to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan; gradually remove our forces from those countries; and let them choose whether, how, and how much to beef up their defenses against China.

If NATO is to persist at all, it should not have members which border Russia, such as Ukraine. That only vindicates Russia’s apparently legitimate fear that the US is trying to encircle and eventually destroy it.

The US can sell advanced weaponry and related systems to all those allied countries to deter/resist China or Russia or Islam, but without any treaty obligation to get our forces involved on their behalf.

But in the case of Kosovo, it was the USA that did the “dragging.” And, perhaps, the UK. Plenty of other NATO members wanted nothing to do with it.

And in the case of Libya, there was a fig leaf of a UNSC Resolution, although it was distorted almost beyond recognition.

As I said, though, I agree in substance. Just because “NATO” is invoked, hardly means the war is necessary, is in self defense, is justified, etc.

I also agree that it was foolish to expand NATO so far East, and that a neutral zone between NATO and the Russians would have been much wiser.

One can also question the treaties with Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

But, as with NATO, it is not really these mutual defense treaties which are driving our hyper interventionist policies.

If the US had restricted itself to real cases of self defense, of enforcing UNSC Resolutions, and of actual defense of NATO countries and the countries named above, since WWII, we would have fought in Korea and the first Gulf War, and perhaps, in Afghanistan (which was approved by the UN, but more in the nature of restoring the pre Taliban government than in punishing it or AQ). And would have engaged in Libya, but, following the SC Resolution strictly, only briefly and not to the extent of bringing down the Gaddafi regime.

No Guatemala. No Cuba. No Vietnam. No DR. No Nicaragua. No Grenada. No Panama. No Haiti. No Lebanon. No various missile and air strikes in Sudan, Libya, etc. No Somalia. No Kosovo. No second Iraq. A much reduced Libya.

I think that would have been a big improvement, and yet at the same time does NOT mean scrapping the important alliances and the UN.

The gentlemen are arguing for better ways abolishing the vice of their countrymen.
I believe that a simple quest for moderation of that vice ( as opposed to a project for the abolition thereof ) is more to the point.

The urge to gallivant abroad is not some newfangled private vice of a few deluded elites, but rather an inherent part of the spirit that led pre-Americans to sail to the sunset to the new continent.

what is the non-interventionist position on multi-lateral, super-national organizations like the UN?

It would seem at first glance that the only thing that the UN does *is* entanglements = either by asserting multilateral authority over member states, or using their own collective power to intervene against minority members or even non-members.

I don’t see how the existence of such an organization could be squared with ‘non-interventionism’